EXHIBITIONS

Transient Forest
From July 3 to 31, 2009, the Lens Factory in Toronto presents Transient Forest, an exhibition that features photographic work by Adrienne Herron. Adrienne Herron uses motion to create personal impressions of her subjects. She achieves this by photographing from a speeding vehicle or moving the camera while pressing the shutter release. This exhibit includes work from her Transient Forest series. Her aim is to express the forest‘s vulnerability as well as its beauty, power and grace. More information at www.adrienneherron.com and www.lensfactory.net.

By Rail
This exhibition by Scott Conarroe is on at Toronto’s Stephen Bulger Gallery until September 12, 2009. By Rail is a survey of North America’s rail infrastructure. It is an elegy, sombre and romantic, of the Golden Age of Industrialism as it recedes and is a study of the culture that remains. The tracks function as a unifying device; they activate the landscape with history and myth, and are things of beauty in their own right. The images in this exhibition depict a time when the ethics and logistics of land-use, travel, and civic design are being reconsidered, when developed nations have invested in a renaissance of rail technologies, and Canada’s attitude is curiously divergent. A touring show of By Rail will be also launched at the Art Gallery of Windsor in October. Scott Conarroe’s work revolves around photographic studies of landscape and the built environment. He has recently been Artist-In-Residence at Light Work (Syracuse NY) and Cerbex (Beijing). He lives in Toronto and is represented by the Stephen Bulger Gallery. www.bulgergallery.com

Sixth Annual Juried Summer Exhibition
The Tufts University Art Gallery in Massachusetts is celebrating its Sixth Annual Juried Summer Exhibition. Thirty-six artists from a variety of art media were selected among 90 submissions to participate in this event. Photography will be represented by Robert Castagna, Stephanie Goode, Alice Grossman, John Heymann, Katherine McVety, Maria Muller, Mark Peterson, Don Sringer, and Howard Woolf. A public opening reception will be held on Thursday June 4 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm at the Aridekman Arts Center 40R Talbot Avenue, Medford, MA. For more information visit www.ase.tufts.edu/gallery.

Vistas: Artists on the Canadian Pacific Railway
The Glenbow Museum in Calgary will present Vistas: Artists on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) from June 20 to September 20, 2009. The exhibit includes works by 20 artists who travelled west on the railroad promised by Sir John A. Macdonald in 1871. The artists featured in this exhibition captured images of the prairie and the mountains in over 130 art works and photographs from Glenbow, and from public and private collections in Canada and the United States. www.glenbow.org

Scott McFarland: A Cultivated View
The National Gallery of Canada is featuring work from Canadian photographer Scott McFarland from April 11 to September 13, 2009. Scott McFarland creates images that depict nature crafted to human will and desire. A major body of work has focused on Vancouver gardens. On one level, the photographs indicate a state of the overall effect appears artificial. McFarland’s works emphasize both the precarious balance between human and natural worlds and how photography’s link to reality is both true and fabricated. This exhibition is presented by the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography and is organized in conjunction with the BC Scene programming presented by the National Arts Centre from April 21 to May 3, 2009. cmcp.gallery.ca

Three Photo Exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery
The Vancouver Art Gallery is opening three new exhibitions dedicated to photography this spring: Andreas Gursky: Werke/Works 80-08 (until September 20), Anthony Hernandez (until September 7), and Stan Douglas: Klatsassin (until September 13). Andreas Gursky: Werke /Works 80-08 is the most comprehensive presentation of Gursky’s oeuvre ever mounted. The exhibition includes more than 150 photographs culled by the artist himself from his vast fund of images and reprinted in panel picture format. The first Canadian exhibition of work by Los Angeles-based photographer Anthony Hernandez will present approximately 40 of the artist’s early black-and-white images along with colour works from the mid-1980s, capturing the spaces, people and streets of LA. Stan Douglas: Klatsassin focuses on the video and photo installation created by Vancouver artist Stan Douglas. The exhibition includes a group of seven grand location photographs as well as a body of black-and-white portrait photographs of the video’s principal characters. www.vanartgallery.bc.ca

AWARDS AND CONTESTS

Foto Source 4th Annual Foto Contest
Foto Source launched its 4th Annual Foto Contest. The theme is “What I Did on My Vacation.” People interested in this on-line competition can head to fotosource.com and enter their favourite shots in any of the three categories: Pets & People, Travel & Nature, and Sports & Adventure. This year’s prizes (valued at over $9000) include Nikon digital cameras, Hertz Rental Gift Certificates, iQ Digital Frames from Gentec International, Foto Source branded accessories, and more. The contest closes on Monday August 31, 2009. For more information, visit www.fotosource.com.

World Press Photo of the Year 2008
The international jury of the 52nd edition of the World Press Photo has selected a black-and-white photograph by American Anthony Suau as the World Press Photo of the Year 2008. The winning image shows an armed officer of the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department moving through a home in Cleveland, Ohio, following an eviction as a result of mortgage foreclosure. Officers have to ensure that the house is clear of weapons, and that the residents have moved out. The winning photograph, taken in March 2008, is part of a story commissioned by Time magazine. The story as a whole won Second Prize in the Daily Life category of the contest. The jury gave prizes in 10 theme categories to 62 photographers of 27 nationalities from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, El Salvador, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the USA. A total of 96,268 photographs were submitted to this year’s contest. To read more about the World Press Photo contest and to view the other winning images of the 2009 edition, visit www.worldpressphoto.com.

Sony World Photography Awards
Canadian professional photographer Julian Abram Wainwright has won the Professional Photojournalism and Documentary - Sport category of the 2009 Sony World Photography Awards. The professional finalists and amateur winners of the 2009 Sony World Photography Awards include 44 photographers, from 22 separate countries. Each of these photographers was exhibited and honoured at the Sony World Photography Awards ceremony at the prestigious Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France, on April 16. The Sony World Photography Awards aim to promote the work of photographers worldwide. As one of the main prizes, the professional category finalists and amateur category winners were showcased in the winners’ exhibition inside the Rotonde Lerins, which takes place alongside the week-long celebration of photography. This winners’ exhibition will also be featured on the Global Tour, which exhibits in leading galleries and cities around the world. The 2010 Sony World Photography Awards is open for entries from June 1 until Friday December 4, 2009. For more information, registration or simply to see the work of the 2009 winners visit: www.worldphotographyawards.org.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Fotoseptiembre USA
This month-long September festival, organized by the SAFOTO-San Antonio Photography Festival, was created 15 years ago to exhibit and celebrate photography and photography-based art forms.
This year, numerous exhibits will be on display in San Antonio, Texas. Galleries in Boeme, Fredericksburg, Kerrville, and New Braunfels, in Texas Hill country, will also exhibit photographic works by national and international artists. All events are free and open to the public. For a complete schedule of events, visit www.safotofestival.com.

100 Years of Karsh
Yousuf Karsh would have been 100 years old on December 23, 2008. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the most influential portraitist photographers of the 20th century, Ottawa’s Festival Karsh is preparing a major exhibit this summer. The show will be open to visitors between June and October, 2009. The exhibit will be held at the Canada Science and Technology Museum, in partnership with the Portrait Gallery of Canada, and will present a fresh view of how Yousuf Karsh developed his unique style, by examining his tools and techniques, and the choices he made. The Karsh Trail will be launched in June, featuring a dozen stops at spots around Ottawa, including the sites of Karsh’s various studios, where visitors will learn about Karsh’s life and career. One of this summer’s stops on The Karsh Trail is the Red Wall Gallery of the School of the Photographic Arts (SPAO). The Red Wall Gallery will feature Likeness, an exhibit where contemporary photo-based artists explore the portrait as representation in a celebratory group exhibit, on from June 12 to September 12. The SPAO will also offer courses and workshops honouring the spirit and techniques of this Canadian master photographer. For more information, visit www.spao.ca and www.festivalkarsh.ca.

MISCELLANEOUS

New Authenticating Method for Historic Photographs
A new approach, developed by scientists of the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) in Los Angeles, was used to analyze the photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson. This new method for authenticating historic photographs could lead to broad implications for museum collections, art historians, collectors, and conservators. It uses non-destructive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and Fourier-transform infrared spectrometry analysis to determine the hidden chemical signatures associated with different photographic processes. GCI Scientists Dusan Stulik and Art Kaplan also discovered that a precise measurement of barium and strontium provides the best clues into the origins of prints. This provides a scientifically-based method for determining the provenance and the authentication of a majority of 20th century photographs, which was, in the past, based on the visual or microscopic inspection of photographic images, a process that is always subject to interpretation. Stulik and Kaplan were recently invited to Paris to partner with the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation and the city’s Atelier de Restauration et de Conservation des Photographies in performing chemical analysis on Henri Cartier-Bresson’s original photographs, undertaking the initial work needed to build an archival database for the well-known photographer’s existing prints.

Saved by her Camera Bag
Heather Rivet is a professional landscape photographer. When she recently fell through thin ice with her camera gear in a Roots system camera bag, she declared, “The Roots bag saved my life.” According to Heather, “[The bag] kept floating, which enabled me to keep my head above the ice by holding on to it.” She had been trying to haul herself up while holding on to her camera bag, but the surrounding ice was too fragile and kept breaking. In a frantic effort, Heather finally jammed her tripod into a hole in the dock and managed to pull herself out. “It’s the Roots backpack magic,” Heather said of her dramatic experience. “The bag is fantastic, it’s durable, it’s made by a Canadian company, and it has proved that it works well, even in the very challenging conditions of a Canadian winter. It went through the ice and survived!” Heather’s Nikon D90 also emerged safe and sound.

An End to the Megapixel Race?
More megapixels can mean larger prints. The question is, do amateur photographers really need a 20-MP camera? How much resolution is required for taking everyday photos? In a recent interview at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA), Akira Watanabe, manager of Olympus Imaging’s SLR planning department, declared, “Twelve megapixels is, I think, enough for covering most applications most customers need. We have no intention to compete in the megapixel wars for E-System.” Instead, the company wants to focus on other characteristics, such as dynamic range, colour reproduction, and a better ISO range for lowlight shooting, according to Watanabe. Olympus’s view is focused mainly on mainstream photographers, as studio and commercial photographers certainly have a need for more megapixels. “We don’t think 20 megapixels is necessary for everybody. If a customer wants more than 20 megapixels, he should go to the full-frame models,” Watanabe said.

WORKSHOPS AND SEMINARS

SPAO Summer Calendar
The School of the Photographic Arts: Ottawa (SPAO) is offering a series of workshops in July, as a part of its summer calendar. The workshops cover from special interest photography such us landscape, natural history, photojournalism and documentary to film/ darkroom techniques including tintype, platinum and palladium print. Some of the workshops have been scheduled to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Ottawa portrait photographer Yoursuf Karsh. Students will explore the use of the large format camera and the natural light and professional studio flash equipment to create portraits and self-portraits. For information and registration visit www.spao.ca.

Banff Adventure Photography Workshop
Mountain Culture at The Banff Centre and the National Geographic Expeditions Council are offering photography workshops conducted by National Geographic photographers Bill Hatcher and Gordon Wiltsie, and Canadian outdoor photographer Alec Pytlowany. The 2009 Banff Adventure Photography Workshop will take place from September 25 to 28, 2009. This seminar is limited to photographers with an existing knowledge of the fundamentals of photography, so applicants are required to submit a portfolio of 10 images for review. The complete workshop program and application information are available at www.banffcentre.ca.